Hampton Hawes - All Night Session! vol 1-3

Hampton Hawes - All Night Session! vol 1-3

jazz | 3cd | eac-flac-cue-log-cover | 225+230+225MB

OJC

Allmusic:
vol 1: On the night of November 12 and into the morning of November 13, 1956, a quartet led by pianist Hampton Hawes recorded enough material to fill three long-playing phonograph record albums. This studio session contained many elements associated with a live gig: the work took place during regular nightclub performing hours, the improvisations were mostly extended, and there were no alternate takes. A remarkable freshness and spontaneity prevailed throughout the session. Although controversy continues regarding the original sequence of titles, Duke Jordan's "Jordu" and Dizzy Gillespie's "Groovin' High" are superb openers for this first of three volumes. In addition to an invigorating run down "Broadway," Hawes improvised two original themes: "Takin' Care" and a bluesy walk entitled "Hampton's Pulpit" that stretched out for more than 11 minutes, making it the longest track of the entire all-night session. Collaborating with the pianist on this historic date were guitarist Jim Hall, bassist Red Mitchell, and drummer Eldridge "Bruz" Freeman. The interplay between these four men is marvelous, particularly when heard with headphones or through a sound system allowing for a full appreciation of the stereophonic balance achieved by the recording engineers.
vol 2: This is the second of three albums that came about as the result of an all-night recording session that took place in Los Angeles on November 12 and 13, 1956. Although Hampton Hawes spontaneously created five original tunes at this extraordinarily inspired date, everything on Vol. 2 comes directly out of the standard bop musician's working repertoire. The quartet, with bassist Red Mitchell, guitarist Jim Hall, and drummer Eldridge "Bruz" Freeman, collectively improvise their way through four attractive standards ("I Should Care" turned out to be the only slow ballad of the entire session) and three of Dizzy Gillespie's most refreshing creations. In 1958 Hawes was quoted as saying "It's hard to put into words how good it feels to play jazz when it's really swinging...I've reached a point where the music fills you up so much emotionally that you feel like shouting hallelujah -- like people do in church when they're converted to God. That's the way I was feeling the night we recorded All Night Session!"
vol 3 of the Hampton Hawes Quartet's All Night Session contains three spontaneously improvised variations on the blues, one very cool extended rendition of Duke Ellington's "Do Nothin' 'Till You Hear from Me" and a strikingly handsome treatment of Harold Arlen's "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea." The briskly paced "Blues #4" is especially progressive and exciting. Apparently "Blues of a Sort" was a warm-up performance, as voices are audible (discussing a football game!) in the background during the bass solo. For this one-take marathon late-night session of November 12 and 13, 1956, Hawes chose to share the studio with guitarist Jim Hall, bassist Red Mitchell and drummer Eldridge "Bruz" Freeman, who had replaced Chuck Thompson following that musician's sudden inability to continue touring with the group earlier that year. "We gave Chuck what money we could and left him sitting on a hospital cot in a white bathrobe." This grim image, like much of Hawes' autobiography Raise Up Off Me, paints a stark picture of the narcotics epidemic among jazz musicians during the '50s. Although this was the first peak of his career, Hawes later admitted that "during the fall of 1956 I was messing up consistently -- showing late on gigs or missing them altogether." He had lots of offers for work, including the possibility of providing music for a film soundtrack: "Wanted to do it, would have paid good, but at the time I didn't even have the bread to get high enough to get to the studio to see what they had in mind." One of the great incongruities of bop is the fact that Charlie Parker and the musicians who were most directly influenced by him were able to be so creative and prolific while grappling with addictions that confounded, immobilized, and eventually slew them. All of these insights quietly swarm beneath the surface of what added up to more than two hours of exceptionally fine quartet jazz.

Tracks
-1. "Jordu" - Jordan - 7:07
-2. "Groovin' High" - Coburn, Gillespie, Parker, Rose… - 5:48
-3. "Takin' Care" - Hawes - 8:09
-4. "Broadway" - Bird, Henderson, McRae, Wood - 6:54
-5. "Hampton's Pulpit" - Hawes - 11:14
--
-1. "I'll Remember April" - DePaul, Johnston, Raye - 7:02
-2. "I Should Care" - Cahn, Stordahl, Weston - 4:23
-3. "Woody 'n You" - Gillespie - 5:41
-4. "Two Bass Hit" - Gillespie, Lewis - 2:50
-5. "Will You Still Be Mine?" - Adair, Dennis - 6:55
-6. "April in Paris" - Duke, Harburg - 7:30
-7. "Blue 'n' Boogie" - Gillespie, Paparelli - 8:11
--
-1. "Do Nothin' Till You Hear fromMe" - Ellington, Russell - 11:03
-2. "Blues, No. 3" - Hawes - 7:38
-3. "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" - Arlen, Koehler - 11:00
-4. "Blues, No. 4" - Hawes - 6:17
-5. "Blues of a Sort" - Hawes - 5:37

Personnel
* Hampton Hawes - piano
* Jim Hall - guitar
* Red Mitchell - bass
* Bruz Freeman - drums

sample & buy: All Night Session